Volvo is phasing out vehicles with combustion engines. From 2019 all of its vehicles will contain an electric motor and be "supplemented" by traditional fuel burning engines. Many current models work the other way round, with a diesel or petrol engine being supplemented by an electric one.

Volvo wants you to binge on Netflix in its autonomous cars

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"This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car," Håkan Samuelsson the president of Volvo said in a statement.

The firm is planning a range of new electric vehicles, ranging from fully-electric to plug-in hybrids and so-called mild-hybrid vehicles. Between 2019 and 2021 five fully electric vehicles will be launched and two of these will be high-performance vehicles from Volvo's Polestar racing company. Details of specific models are yet to be announced.

Volvo aims to have sold one million electric cars by 2025. In order to do that, the firm will have to compete with Elon Musk's Tesla. This week the first production models of its Model 3 are set to be released. More than 400,000 models of the $35,000 (£27,100) all-electric vehicle have been pre-ordered – although Tesla has been hit by a production shortfall.

Volvo is already competing with Tesla in the self-driving car segment with the XC90, V90 and S90 models all coming with a semi-autonomous driving system as standard.

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Other electric vehicles are being developed by major manufacturers around the world. These include performance vehicles as well as ones that can be used on a daily basis. On July 3 Aston Martin revealed its RapidE, the vehicle is its first all-electric model and is based on the RapidE AMR concept.

The London Taxi Company has also committed to producing black cabs that are all-electric. At its manufacturing plant in Ansty, near Coventry, up to 20,000 of the vehicles are going to be produced every year, with the models based on Volvo's designs.